1. Thinking About Literature
Emily Dickinson, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Stephen Dunn, The Sacred
William Shakespeare, When my love swears that she is made of truth
David Clewell, Vegetarian Physics
Why Study Literature?
Elizabeth Alexander, Praise Song for the Day
Charles Schultz, Peanuts (cartoon)
What Makes an Effective Reader?
David Ignatow, The Bagel
Albert Goldbarth, Shawl
Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry
Sherman Alexie, From Superman and Me
Franz Wright, Learning to Read
Approaching Literature
Robert Frost, “Out, Out—,”
Experience
Analysis
Extension
Julia Alvarez, Snow
2. Close Reading: Analyzing Poetry and the Passage of Fiction
What Is Close Reading?
First-Impression Questions
Willa Cather, from My Antonia
A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young
The Elements of Style
Diction
Figurative Language
Imagery
Syntax
Tone and Mood
A Sample Close Analysis
Eudora Welty, from Old Mr. Marblehall F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Great Gatsby Special Considerations for Reading Poetry Closely
Rhyme
Meter
Form
Poetic Syntax
Sound
William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow
John Keats, Bright Star would I were stedfast as thou art—
A Sample Close Analysis
Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder
Simon Ortiz, My Father’s Song
Talking with the Text
Think Aloud
Christina Georgina Rossetti, Promises like Pie-Crust
Annotation
William Shakespeare, When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes
Graphic Organizer
Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Scarlet Letter
From Analysis to Essay: Writing a Close Analysis
Yusef Komunyakaa, Slam, Dunk, & Hook
Analyzing
Developing a Thesis Statement
Organizing a Close Analysis Essay
Integrating Quotations
Documenting Sources
A Sample Close Analysis Essay
Carlton Curtis, The Beauty and Danger of Basketball (student writing)
Edward Hirsch, Fast Break
Working with Two Texts: The Comparison and Contrast Essay
Developing a Thesis Statement
Organizing a Comparison and Contrast Essay
Transitions
Documenting Sources
A Sample Comparison and Contrast Essay
Talat Rubin, One Game, Two Lives (student writing)
William Stafford, Traveling through the Dark
Maxine Kumin, Woodchucks
3. The Big Picture: Analyzing Fiction and Drama
Elements of Fiction
Plot
Gabriel García Márquez, One of These Days
Character
Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens, from Hard Times
Setting
Edgar Allan Poe, from The Masque of the Red Death
John Steinbeck, from The Grapes of Wrath
Henry Roth, from Call It Sleep
George Orwell, from 1984
Thomas Hardy, from Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Point of View
Dinaw Mengestu, from The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Mark Twain, from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Katherine Mansfield, from Miss Brill
Shirley Jackson, from The Lottery
Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway
Brad Watson, Seeing Eye
Suzanne Berne, from A Crime in the Neighborhood
Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein
Colm Tóibín, from Brooklyn
Symbol
Theme
Edward P. Jones, The First Day
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Special Considerations for Analyzing Drama
Plot
Character
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
William Shakespeare, from Othello, the Moor of Venice
Setting
Henrik Ibsen, from A Doll’s House
Lorraine Hansberry, from A Raisin in the Sun
Symbol
D. L. Coburn, from The Gin Game
Terrence McNally, Andre’s Mother
From Analysis to Essay: Writing an Interpretive Essay
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Analyzing Literary Elements
Developing a Thesis Statement
Planning an Interpretive Essay
Supporting Your Interpretation
A Sample Interpretive Essay
Aneyn M. O’Grady, Student Essay on Trifles
4. Entering the Conversation
Conversation: Coming to America
EMMA LAZARUS, The New Colossus (poetry)
LEWIS W. HINE, Playground in Tenement Alley, Boston, 1909 (photography)
LANGSTON HUGHES, Let America Be America Again (poetry)
DWIGHT OKITA, In Response to Executive Order 9066: All Americans of Japanese
Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers (poetry)
PAT MORA, Immigrants (poetry)
AMY TAN, Two Kinds (fiction)
JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Latin Deli (poetry)
BHARATI MUKHERJEE, Two Ways to Belong in America (nonfiction)
Writing an Essay Using Multiple Texts
Developing a Thesis Statement
Organizing a Documented Essay
Using Literary Texts as Evidence
Integrating Quotations
Including Personal Experience as Evidence
A Sample Essay Using Multiple Texts
Maddie Ramey, “The Golden Door”: The Ideals of “The New Colossus” in American
Today (student writing)
5. Home and Family
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Classic Text
JAMES JOYCE, The Dead
Modern Text
AUGUST WILSON, Fences
Fiction
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, Babylon Revisited
TILLIE OLSEN, I Stand Here Ironing
HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES, The Moths
Helena María Viramontes on Writing
MAY-LEE CHAI, Saving Sourdi
Poetry
THOMAS BASTARD, De Puero Balbutiente
BEN JONSON, On My First Son
ANNE BRADSTREET, Before the Birth of One of Her Children
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, We Are Seven
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, A Prayer for My Daughter
LANGSTON HUGHES, Mother to Son
THEODORE ROETHKE, My Papa’s Waltz
ROBERT HAYDEN, Those Winter Sundays
SYLVIA PLATH, Daddy
SHARON OLDS, Rite of Passage
LINDA PASTAN, Marks
MARY OLIVER, Wild Geese
EAMON GRENNAN, Pause
LI-YOUNG LEE, The Hammock
KEVIN YOUNG, Cousins
Paired Poems
EAVAN BOLAND, The Pomegranate
RITA DOVE, The Bistro Styx
Visual Text
JACOB LAWRENCE, A Family
Conversation
The Lure and Language of Food
VINCENT VAN GOGH, The Potato-Eaters (painting)
RALPH ELLISON, I Yam What I Am (fiction)
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, My Father and the Figtree (poetry)
LAURA ESQUIVEL, January: Christmas Rolls (fiction)
LISA PARKER, Snapping Beans (poetry)
CHRIS OFFUTT, Brain Food (nonfiction)
GEETA KOTHARI, If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I? (nonfiction)
Student Writing
Analyzing Paired Poems: Style in "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays"
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Connotation
Suggestions for Writing
Home and Family
6. Identity and Culture
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Classic Text
JOSEPH CONRAD, Heart of Darkness
Modern Text
JHUMPA LAHIRI, Interpreter of Maladies
Fiction
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, Young Goodman Brown
JOHN UPDIKE, A & P
JOYCE CAROL OATES, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
ANA MENÉNDEZ, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
Poetry
JOHN MILTON, When I consider how my light is spent
ALEXANDER POPE, The Quiet Life
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The World Is Too Much with Us
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, The Apology
EMILY DICKINSON, I’m Nobody! Who are you?
E. E. CUMMINGS, the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
COUNTEE CULLEN, Heritage
DYLAN THOMAS, Fern Hill
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, We Real Cool
MAHMOUD DARWISH, Identity Card
KAMAU BRATHWAITE, Ogun
GARY SOTO, Mexicans Begin Jogging
SHERMAN ALEXIE, The Powwow at the End of the World
JULIA ALVAREZ, First Muse
NATHALIE HANDAL, Caribe in Nueva York
Nathalie Handal on Writing
Paired Poems
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, To George Sand: A Desire
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, To George Sand: A Recognition
Visual Texts
FRIDA KAHLO, Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States
FRIDA KAHLO, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky
Conversation
The Legacy of Colonialism
The Colonization of Africa, 1880–1939 (map)
RUDYARD KIPLING, The White Man’s Burden (poetry)
H. T. JOHNSON, The Black Man's Burden (poetry)
DORIS LESSING, The Old Chief Mshlanga (fiction)
FELIX MNTHALI, The Stranglehold of English Lit (poetry)
CHINUA ACHEBE, An Image of Africa (nonfiction)
BINYAVANGA WAINAINA, How to Write about Africa (nonfiction)
Student Writing
Close Reading Fiction: Characterization in Inerprter of Maladies
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Specialized, Archaic, and Unfamiliar Diction
Suggestions for Writing
Identity and Culture
7. Love and Relationships
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Classic Text
OSCAR WILDE, The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Modern Text
SANDRA CISNEROS, Woman Hollering Creek
Fiction
ANTON CHEKHOV, The Lady with the Little Dog
KATHERINE MANSFIELD, Bliss
WILLIAM FAULKNER, A Rose for Emily
DAGOBERTO GILB, Love in L.A.
Poetry
THOMAS WYATT, They flee from me
SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust
JOHN DONNE, The Flea
ROBERT HERRICK, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
LORD BYRON, She walks in Beauty
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, Love is not all
MARGARET ATWOOD, Siren Song
ELIZABETH BISHOP, One Art
ROBERT PENN WARREN, True Love
BILLY COLLINS, Weighing the Dog
JANE HIRSHFIELD, This was once a love poem
Paired Poems
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
PABLO NERUDA, Mi fea: Soneta XX
PABLO NERUDA, My ugly love: Sonnet XX
Visual Text
GUSTAV KLIMT, The Kiss
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, Short Story on a Painting of Gustav Klimt
Conversation
Courtship: The Rules of Engagement
ANDREAS CAPELLANUS, from The Art of Courtly Love (nonfiction)
ANDREW MARVELL, To His Coy Mistress (poetry)
ANNIE FINCH, Coy Mistress (poetry)
Annie Finch on Writing
CHARLES DICKENS, from Our Mutual Friend (fiction)
E. E. CUMMINGS, somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond (poetry)
ZAREH KHRAKHOUNI, Measure (poetry)
ANITA JAIN, Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist? (nonfiction)
RANDALL MUNROE, Boyfriend (cartoon)
Student Writing
Analyzing Drama: Irony in The Importance of Being Earnest
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Irony
Suggestions for Writing
Love and Relationships
8. Conformity and Rebellion
Not all those who wander are lost.
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Classic
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Modern
EDWIDGE DANTICAT, The Book of the Dead
Stories
HERMAN MELVILLE, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
KURT VONNEGUT, Harrison Bergeron
T. C. BOYLE, Admiral
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, The Headstrong Historian
Poems
GEORGE HERBERT, The Collar
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, Song: To the Men of England
EMILY DICKINSON, Much Madness is divinest Sense
WALLACE STEVENS, Disillusionment of Ten O’clock
E. E. CUMMINGS, anyone lived in a pretty how town
NAZIM HIKMET, On Living
DYLAN THOMAS, Do not go gentle into that good night
ANNE SEXTON, Her Kind
DUDLEY RANDALL, Booker T. and W.E.B.
SANDRA GILBERT, Sonnet: The Ladies’ Home Journal
LUCILLE CLIFTON, Homage to My Hips
ALLEN GINSBERG, Is About
CAROL ANN DUFFY, Penelope
Paired Poems
MATTHEW PRIOR, An Epitaph
W. H. AUDEN, The Unknown Citizen
Visual Text
Book covers for Hamlet
Conversation
The Metamorphosis: Interpretations and Transformations
FRANZ KAFKA, The Metamorphosis (novella)
FRANZ KAFKA, To Max Brod (letter)
FRANZ KAFKA, To Kurt Wolff Publishing Company (letter)
DAVID ZANE MAIROWITZ and ROBERT CRUMB, from Kafka (graphic essay)
PETER KUPER, from The Metamorphosis (graphic novel)
Peter Kuper on The Metamorphosis
Student Writing
Analyzing Fiction: Alienation in The Metamorphosis
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Sound
Suggestions for Writing
Conformity and Rebellion
9. Art and the Artist
Art for art’s sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden . . . it is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.
— E. M. Forster
Classic
T. S. ELIOT, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Modern
JAMES BALDWIN, Sonny’s Blues
Stories
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper
RAYMOND CARVER, Cathedral
DON DELILLO, Videotape
Poems
ALEXANDER POPE, Sound and Sense
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, London, 1802
JOHN KEATS, On the Sonnet
JOHN KEATS, Ode on a Grecian Urn
ROBERT BROWNING, My Last Duchess
CLAUDE MCKAY, The Harlem Dancer
WALLACE STEVENS, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
D. H. LAWRENCE, Piano
FRANK O’HARA, The Day Lady Died
MARY OLIVER, Singapore
BILLY COLLINS, The Blues
Paired Poems
EDWARD HOPPER, Nighthawks (painting)
IRA SADOFF, Hopper’s “Nighthawks” (1942)
SUSAN LUDVIGSON, Inventing My Parents: After Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks
Visual Text
EDGAR DEGAS, The Laundresses
EAVAN BOLAND, Degas’s Laundresses
Eavan Boland on Writing
Conversation
A Study of Seamus Heaney: The Responsibility of the Artist
DENNIS O’DRISCOLL, from Stepping Stones, Interviews with Seamus Heaney (interview)
SEAMUS HEANEY, from Feeling into Words (nonfiction)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Crediting Poetry (Nobel lecture)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Digging (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Requiem for the Croppies (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Bogland (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, The Tollund Man (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Tollund (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, A Call (poetry)
SEAMUS HEANEY, Postscript (poetry)
Student Writing
Close Reading Poetry: Speaker's Attitude in "My Last Dutchess"
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Figurative Language
Suggestions for Writing
Art and the Artist
10. Traditions and ProgressThe world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
Classic
HENRY JAMES, Daisy Miller
Modern
FLANNERY O’CONNOR, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Stories
ALICE WALKER, Everyday Use
CHARLES BAXTER, Fenstad’s Mother
SALMAN RUSHDIE, The Free Radio
GISH JEN, Who’s Irish?
Poems
THOMAS GRAY, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
WILLIAM BLAKE, London
MATTHEW ARNOLD, Dover Beach
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, God’s Grandeur
EMILY DICKINSON, Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
ROBERT FROST, Mending Wall
W. B. YEATS, The Second Coming
JAMES WRIGHT, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
MITSUYE YAMADA, A Bedtime Story
MAY SWENSON, Goodbye, Goldeneye
CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI, Indian Movie, New Jersey
STEPHEN DUNN, Charlotte Brontë in Leeds Point
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, When All of My Cousins Are Married
Aimee Nezhukumatathil on Writing
DEREK WALCOTT, Forty Acres
Paired Poems
WALT WHITMAN, Mannahatta
CARL SANDBURG, Chicago
Visual Text
KEHINDE WILEY, Portrait of Andries Stilte II
Conversation
The Harlem Renaissance: Progress within Tradition?
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (nonfiction)
LANGSTON HUGHES, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (nonfiction)
LANGSTON HUGHES, Jazzonia (poetry)
CLAUDE MCKAY, The White House (poetry)
ZORA NEALE HURSTON, Spunk (fiction)
AARON DOUGLASS, The Spirit of Africa (woodcut)
ARNA BONTEMPS, Nocturne at Bethesda (poetry)
JESSIE REDMON FAUSET, from Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral (fiction)
Student Writing
Working with Sources: On the Harlem Renaissance
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Syntax
Suggestions for Writing
Tradition and Progress
11. War and PeaceDo dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.
— Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone
Classic
SOPHOCLES, Antigone
Modern
TIM O’BRIEN, The Things They Carried
Stories
LUIGI PIRANDELLO, War
MURIEL SPARK, The First Year of My Life
CYNTHIA OZICK, The Shawl
BHARATI MUKHERJEE, The Management of Grief
Poems
HOMER, The Champion Arms for Battle, from Book 19 of the Iliad
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, If we are marked to die . . . from Henry V, Act IV, scene iii
ROBERT SOUTHEY, The Battle of Blenheim
WALT WHITMAN, Vigil strange I kept on the field one night
HERMAN MELVILLE, Shiloh: A Requiem (April, 1862)
SIEGFRIED SASSOON, Lamentations
WILFRED OWEN, Dulce et Decorum Est
ANNA AKHMATOVA, The First Long-Range Artillery Shell in Leningrad
RANDALL JARRELL, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
HENRY REED, Naming of Parts
RICHARD WILBUR, First Snow in Alsace
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA, The Terrorist, He Watches
YOUSIF AL-SA’IGH, An Iraqi Evening
BRIAN TURNER, Sadiq
Brian Turner on Writing
NATASHA TRETHEWEY, Elegy for the Native Guards
Paired Poems
WILFRED OWEN, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
WILFRED OWEN, Arms and the Boy
Visual Texts
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Boy Fascist, 1932
Conversation
Finding Peace
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Ulysses (poetry)
THOMAS HARDY, A Wife in London (poetry)
ERNEST HEMINGWAY, Soldier’s Home (fiction)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, Facing It (poetry)
MAYA LIN, from Boundaries (nonfiction)
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, Fallen Soldiers Arriving at Dover Air Force Base (photography)
RACHELLE JONES, Satisfy My Soul (blog post)
Student Writing
Analyzing Drama: Theme in Antigone
The Writer’s Craft — Close Reading
Imagery
Suggestions for Writing
War and Peace
MLA Guidelines for a List of Works Cited
Glossary of Literary Terms
Acknowledgments
Index of First Lines
Index of Authors and Titles